The present invention relates to a new and distinct perennial variety of Vaccinium corymbosum hybrid (blueberry), which has been given the variety denomination of ‘C03-158’. The new variety ‘C03-158’ shows distinctive traits such as early season, good flavor and firm fruit. Its market class is that of a fruiting plant. The new variety ‘C03-158’ is intended for use as fresh fruit for shipping, customer pick and processing markets and as a home garden plant.
The new blueberry cultivar is a selection resulting from seedlings produced in a controlled breeding programme of Vaccinium varieties in Florida, USA in 2001 from a cross of the blueberry variety known as ‘Emerald’ (seed parent) (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 12,165) and the blueberry variety known as ‘F97-169’ (pollen parent) (unpatented). The seed from the cross was sown and grown in Corindi Beach, New South Wales, Australia. The new cultivar was discovered and selected in 2003 as a single plant within a population of seedlings resulted from the controlled cross, in an experimental block in the field at Corindi Beach, New South Wales, Australia, and has since been named ‘C03-158’. Selection criteria were a combination of early season, low chilling requirement, medium fruit of good flavor, firm fruit. The new variety was subsequently evaluated for a number of years at the commercial farm at Corindi Beach, New South Wales, Australia. The new variety showed distinctive traits such as mid-season, good flavor and firm fruit.
Asexual reproduction of the new variety ‘C03-158’ by softwood cutting propagation since 2003 at Corindi Beach, New South Wales, Australia has demonstrated that the new variety reproduces true to type with all of the characteristics, as herein described, firmly fixed and retained through successive generations of such asexual propagation, with the clones phenotypically identical to the original plant.
The seed parent ‘Emerald’ is characterized by a late-very late timing of ripening of fruit. The pollen parent ‘F97-169’ is characterized by an early timing of ripening of fruit. The new variety ‘C03-158’ differs from the seed parent ‘Emerald’ in that ‘C03-158’ has an earlier cropping timing, averaging 30 days earlier than ‘Emerald’. The new variety ‘C03-158’ has maintained its distinguished characteristics throughout successive asexual propagation.